


The Thing About Apple Cottage

by lyricwritesprose



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: CW: deadname, CW: misgendering, CW: transphobia, Established Relationship, M/M, POV Outsider, Queer Guardian Angel Aziraphale (Good Omens), Queer Guardian Demon Crowley (Good Omens), Queer Themes, although I am not a youth, sorry about that, the relationship still isn't the focus, this is mostly some headcanon about LGBT+/queer stuff, you could call it queer youth wish fulfillment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 20:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19384363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose
Summary: There's a cottage by the sea where the children like to go.  Sometimes it's for ice cream, sometimes it's for a listening ear, sometimes when something goes disastrously wrong.





	The Thing About Apple Cottage

The thing about Apple Cottage was that Ryan was warned not to go there.  His parents thought that the two men who lived there were “funny,” and they said it in a tone that made “funny” the worst thing on Earth.

Ryan intended to obey.  He was the sort of serious, shy boy who generally did what he was told because it might be dangerous otherwise.  But one day, Gavin and Robert chased him down, intending to pound him for being a sissy, and he found himself running toward Apple Cottage.

He hesitated before running into the garden.  Whatever “funny” meant, it might be very bad for him.  And his hesitation cost him, because that was when Gavin caught him, and spun him around, and kicked him savagely.  Ryan gasped and doubled over.

Gavin let go.

Ryan backed up, still panting from the pain, and belatedly realized that Gavin and Robert were staring in absolute terror at something over his shoulder.

He turned.

Ryan was only mildly afraid of snakes.  But  _ this _ snake was an entirely different order of being than the little things that wiggled in the ditch.  It was red and black, every scale gleaming, and big enough that it could rear up to the height of a man, weaving, and still have a lot more snake to follow.  Which was exactly what it was doing.

Ryan knew, without a doubt, that (a) there was no such thing as a snake like that in England, and (b) it was  _ there, _ solid as anything, eyeing Gavin with yellow-eyed interest.

The moment broke, and Gavin shrieked and ran, Robert beside him.  The snake dropped to the ground and pursued them, winding smoothly along the lane.  Ryan thought it could probably go a lot faster if it wanted to.

He turned and bolted for the nearest sanctuary, which was the door of Apple Cottage.  Burst inside, slammed the door behind him, and interrupted the shocked man who came out of the kitchen to find out what the ruckus was about.   _ “Call the police!  GIANT FUCKING SNAKE!” _

The man said primly, “I’m quite sure the snake wasn’t doing  _ that. _   I would have noticed.”

Ryan stared at him, uncomprehending.

“Why don’t you come into the kitchen and have a glass of milk?  You look like you’ve had a fright.”

So Ryan went into the kitchen with the man, whose name was Mr. Fell, and had a glass of milk, and before he knew it he was explaining all about Gavin and getting beaten up.  “They don’t think I’m a regular boy,” Ryan said. “And it’s true. I don’t  _ fit. _   I want to be like them, I want to fit in . . .”

“Why?” asked Mr. Fell.

Ryan stammered a bit in confusion.  “Because—well, because—”

“If you ask me,” Mr. Fell said, “it’s better to look and act and exist the way you want to, and get funny looks for it, than try to be like someone else and be miserable for it.  But we’ve got to do something about the beating up. That’s unacceptable. What do your parents say about it?”

“They say I should try harder to fit in,” Ryan told him.

“Well, no help there, then,” Mr. Fell said.  “Let me think about it.”

At around that time, the other man came in, swaggering in a way Ryan had never seen before, seeming very pleased with himself.  Mr. Crowley, Ryan found out, was Mr. Fell’s husband, and he was (or pretended to be) displeased with the prospect of “more freeloaders in our kitchen,” but when Mr. Fell explained Ryan’s dilemma, he leapt in enthusiastically with suggestions of sabotage, most of which were only suitable for a prank war in its final catastrophic stages before the police came by and suggested strongly that everyone stop.  When Ryan reluctantly explained that he didn’t actually  _ want _ to mess around with fireworks, Mr. Crowley said, “Well, they should leave you alone for a little while, anyway,” and then smiled a wicked smile when asked what he meant.

By the time he was done with his milk, Ryan had almost forgotten about the giant snake. He was not entirely sure he believed in it, even after having seen it.

§

The thing about Apple Cottage was, all the children told stories about it.

Some stories said that the two men were witches, and devoured children.  (When Mr. Crowley found out about that, he started making idle remarks about baking people into pies.)  Some stories said that Mr. Crowley wore dark glasses all the time because he was half vampire. (When Mr. Crowley found out about that, he made sure to be seen drinking dark red liquid out of a wine glass, and also let it be known that he quite liked a movie called “What We Do In The Shadows.”)  Some stories said that the two were wizards. (Mr. Crowley made an off-hand remark about J.K. Rowling getting the Dark Mark all wrong, and then let people draw their own conclusion about his tattoo.) Some said that they were just fantastically, improbably rich, and that one might have been true.  At the very least, the magnificent black car that Mr. Crowley drove (at high speeds, to the dismay of all the grown-ups) could not have been cheap.

§

The thing about Apple Cottage was, whenever the two men were there, there were usually children.  Not all the children in the village. Gavin and Robert, in particular, thought the place was spooky, and described in such terms that Ryan wondered if they were looking at the same house.  But many of the children found their way there eventually, either through happenstance or dares. Often, they were the odd ones. Millie Martin, who smelled funny. Angus Brock, who was big and awkward and went just by Brock because he was so embarrassed that his name was “Angus.”  Ryan.

Other children came in from out of town.  There were Adam and the Them, who could transition seamlessly from talking about how to save the world from global warming to playing the adventures of the Starship  _ Exelsior _ (formerly named the Starship  _ Starsmasher, _ formerly named the Starship  _ Pulsewave Rider, _ formerly named the Starship  _ Tadfield). _   Ryan was a bit in awe of Adam.  He was charismatic, vivid, and once headbutted a boy so violently that he flew back four feet.  (The boy had called Millie Martin a fat greasy uggo. Adam, nose bleeding triumphantly, carried himself like a champion and made sure to involve Millie in the next game.)

Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley both welcomed the children, but in diametrically opposite ways.  Mr. Fell would feed everyone (especially Millie, whose undeniable weight hid the fact that she didn’t always get breakfast or lunch).  He would listen to anyone, for as long as they wanted. There was something—it seemed bizarre to call a man “motherly,” but it was the only adjective Ryan could think of.

Mr. Crowley, in contrast, was the best at prank wars.  He had a vicious sense of humor and no sense of scale whatsoever, and that led to several notable incidents.  He always avoided targeting anyone who was nervous, like Daphne Libbert, but anyone else was fair game. But he also sometimes took an interest in other peoples’ interests.  When Brock took up astronomy, Mr. Crowley suddenly needed a new, better telescope, and gave away his old, inferior one (gleaming, this year’s model, and probably very expensive).  He had a surprising willingness to listen to Brock talk about his interests in general (and Brock could go on about a subject until just about everyone longed for him to talk about something,  _ anything _ else.)  Of course, it might have helped that some of Brock’s interests were chaotic things like explosives.

§

The thing about Apple Cottage was, sometimes you wondered about it.  Sometimes Mr. Fell came into the room with a tray full of mugs of cocoa, and you could  _ swear _ the door had shut itself behind him.

Ryan didn’t believe in magic.  He hadn’t, ever since his Hogwarts letter hadn’t arrived on his eleventh birthday on account of things like that didn’t exist.  And he had taken it harder than a lot of other eleven-year-olds, because he had dreamed of going  _ away— _ somewhere, anywhere.  He cried about it, although he never told anyone.

But Apple Cottage made it seem, somehow, less like the world was about eating the same eggs and toast every morning and feeling miserable until you died.  When he played with the other children, there were starships and hollow Earths and superheroes. And when he didn’t, when he just went up there for a quick glass of milk—it still felt less crushing than the rest of the world.

§

The thing about Apple Cottage was, the garden was magnificent.  Roses, irises, every flower you could think of and some that you couldn’t, blooming longer than anyone else’s and sometimes out of season entirely.  It was like that despite the two men being abroad at least half the time, traveling in Greece or Morocco or other exotic locales. They didn’t have a gardener.  The anomaly was enough to drive Mrs. Pinkard half mad. Her garden was her main source of one-upsmanship, and it simply didn’t  _ do _ to have another, better garden blooming over the hill.  She made herself obnoxious about it.

The night before she met with some sort of garden association, someone decorated her garden with a staggering one hundred and thirty three plastic flamingos.  They were everywhere. Peeking out of the bushes, standing proudly on the lawn, incubating the large reflective globe as if it were their egg. Some of them were sleek black birds wearing sunglasses.

Ryan had been in on the operation, to his nervous delight, and he still couldn’t figure out where Mr. Crowley had  _ got _ all the flamingos, let alone fit all of them into the big black car.

§

The thing about Apple Cottage was, Ryan couldn’t think where else to go.

She made her way up there in tears.  Mr. Fell sat her down at the table, got her a glass of milk and a dish of the plum tart he had been attempting, and coaxed her into eating it.  Ryan looked down fixedly at her fork.

Mr. Crowley came into the kitchen and leaned against the counter.  “Are you going to tell us what’s wrong,” he inquired, “or are you going to sit there and cry into your food?”

“My parents threw me out,” Ryan said.

Mr. Crowley pulled up a chair at the table and sat forward, listening, unlike his usual casual sprawl.  “Tell us.”

“I’ve been looking on the internet,” Ryan said, and then had to take another bite and a deep breath for strength.  “You know I’ve been feeling awful, like I don’t fit into my own skin, and it’s been getting worse, and I think I may actually be a—a girl.  A trans girl. And I told my parents, and they said that they wouldn’t have a pansy in the house and I could come back when I was ready to be an actual man, otherwise don’t bother.  And I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what I can do. I didn’t  _ ask _ for this.  I didn’t ask to be this sort of stuck-between thing.”  She looked up, hardly daring to see. They would hate her, and they would kick her out too—

Mr. Fell was sitting frozen.

It was not the sort of look, she thought later, that  _ should _ have been frightening.  Mr. Fell was a fundamentally un-frightening person.  But just at that moment, she got the impression of a rage that was much  _ bigger _ than the cottage—much bigger than the village, or even the ocean beside it—all stuffed somehow into a person.  Who wasn’t wearing any expression at all.

Ryan pushed her chair back so fast that it fell over.  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll go—”

“You most certainly will  _ not,” _ Mr. Fell said.

Ryan stopped, heart in throat.

And then, suddenly, Mr. Fell seemed to notice her fear, and shook his head gently.  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, my dear. Sit down and eat the rest of your tart, and let’s think about what to do about this.”

Ryan looked around to pick up her chair, but she must have been wrong about it falling over, because it was sitting upright.  She pulled it up to the table, still nervous, and picked up her fork.

“The thing, I think,” Mr. Fell said, “is for me to go down to the village and have a nice talk with your parents.  I’m sure I can make them see reason.”

“You can’t,” Ryan said.  “They hate me. They hate everything like me.  All my life, they’ve been trying to make me into a proper boy, and I just don’t  _ fit, _ and they’ve hated me for a long time before this.”

Mr. Crowley was looking at Mr. Fell in concern.  “I can do it,” he said. “I know you don’t like to—”  He made a vague, indecipherable gesture.

“No.  No, my mind is quite made up.  I’m going down to the village, I’m going to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Littleton, and I’m going to do it right away.”  He stood up. “I’ll be back shortly, er—” He looked awkward. “You might want to start thinking of a name, you know.   _ Ryan _ might be a bad fit.  Talk to Crowley about it.  He chose his own name too.”

And then he was gone, leaving Ryan sitting at the same table as Mr. Crowley.

Ryan looked away.

“You can always change names in the middle, if one doesn’t fit,” Mr. Crowley remarked.

“I’m not sure there’s any point,” Ryan said miserably.

“Why not?”

“Because—because it’s not going to work.  Any of it. My parents will still hate me when Mr. Fell is done talking to them.  I’m still not going to look like a girl. I’m going to grow up, and I’m going to look like a freak whenever I dress like I want and a boy whenever I don’t.  I'm never going to feel right. It’s like—it’s like when you’re eleven, and you don’t get your Hogwarts letter, and you realize there’s no magic in the world, and it's all stupid and dull and grey and pointless.  It just won’t  _ work, _ that’s all.”

Mr. Crowley regarded her very carefully, and then seemed to come to a decision.  “What you need,” he said, “is to learn this phrase by heart: ‘I’m wearing dark glasses, and I don’t care.’”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything.  Someone looks at you and thinks you’re a freak?  You’re wearing dark glasses and you don’t care. Someone shouts at you?  You’re wearing dark glasses and you don’t care. Yes, you’re going to be an outsider.  You are never going to completely fit in with the world at large. But you don’t actually have to give a fuck.  It’s amazing what a little bit of armor can do for your self-confidence. Try it.” He took off his glasses. “I’m wearing dark glasses—”  He put them carefully on Ryan’s face. “And I don’t care.”

Ryan stared at him.  Her mouth was open.

Mr. Crowley waited for a moment, meeting her eyes.  Enough time to be sure. Enough time to be certain what she was seeing.

Then he smiled and put his finger to his lips.  “No such thing as magic, of course,” he said, and there was suddenly another pair of sunglasses in his hands.  He put them on. “But there is such a thing as shopping." He grinned savagely on the last word. "Let me take you to get some nice dresses.  I think it’ll improve your mood.”

§

The thing about Apple Cottage was—after a shopping trip, in which Mr. Crowley casually dropped more money than Ryan’s parents made in a month, she came back to her own house wearing a white sundress and sandals with a slight heel.  And her parents took her in without question. They seemed shaken. Penitent. As if the foundations of their world had been smashed around them.

The thing about Apple Cottage was, Gavin and Robert didn’t bother Ryan anywhere near it, because they thought they had seen the huge, black,  _ yellow-eyed _ snake.

The thing about Apple Cottage was that there was always ice cream, or biscuits, or something good to eat, and along with it came a sense of welcome.

The thing about Apple Cottage was, it was magic.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Thing About Apple Cottage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24127213) by [Djapchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Djapchan/pseuds/Djapchan)




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